Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Emergence of Animism in Contemporary Western Philosophy :Work in Progress

good questions toyin. there are lines between entities when they are drawn. they are not "god-given," let's say. anyway, recent critical work very much is pushing notions that animals share traits, emotional psychic etc, with humans. it isn't my field, but major critics are now writing in that direction. cajetan iheka is writing about it. the whole field of animal rights is burgeoning.

anyway, it isn't that the three major western religions are gone,but that their "cultural capital" in the realm of knowledge--epistemology and ontology--has been supplanted by scientific/enlightenment values. that was althusser's point quite a while ago, and if anything it is more true than ever.

meanwhile, popular values, grounded in faith, seems stronger than ever as well.

so i guess we have to define which audience we are addressing: an educated or a non-educated one.

now, african religious beliefs had been denigrated by colonial discourses. i believe firmly that is changing, that scholars are now looking at how african religious beliefs function in defining values, in opening new possibilities for studying philosophical questions, like being, free from the wretched baggage of colonial thinking or its christian political agendas.

we surely are in a new age; but no new age comes without fighting off and rejecting the old, which is what your question about abrahamic religions suggests to me.

and we can discuss this calmly, looking at this film or novel, that theoretical philosophical text, without impediment. while at the same time, to open those questions in public venues might indeed risk exposing us to attacks.

the venues make all the difference (thinking of that pakistani girl condemned to death for christian beliefs) and i would be more circumspect around boko haram ideologues, or anywhere in the sahara these days, than i am here in my little corner of east lansing.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2019 12:03 PM
To: Yoruba Affairs; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Emergence of Animism in Contemporary Western Philosophy :Work in Progress

 

ecocriticism is now effacing the ontological lines between the human and non human. old school thinking about animism, as understood along anthropological lines, is no longer respectable, which goes along with the end of abrahamic religions as defining any meaningful priorities of value.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2019 11:26 AM
To: usaafricadialogue; Yoruba Affairs
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Emergence of Animism in Contemporary Western Philosophy :Work in Progress

 

I used to think Western philosophy and Western academic scholarship uniformly  saw animism as a primitive style of thinking until I read such sources as the Wikipedia essays on animism and panpsychism.

What are the implications of such re-examinations for African thought, the value of whose animistic character is highly contested between philosophy and Abrahamic religions?

More forthcoming.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.